by a large party (100 men) being ordered, professedly as a punishment, to act as marines on board his Majesty's ships. I told them, I was aware that much misrepresentation had taken place, and they might have some reason to complain; but the merits of the case could never be known without a full and temperate investigation: and it was on that account the committee was ordered, _even before the Government insisted on the marines embarking_[76]. They had therefore, as a body of officers, their choice, either to recognise my authority and allow this proceeding to take its course, or to place themselves at once in opposition to Government: there was no medium. They wished me to promise an amnesty for all that had been done here; or, at least, that I would recommend one. I said I would do neither; I would do my duty, and what I was ordered. I had thought it, I added, no departure from my duty to speak to them in the manner I had done, and should be happy if any thing I had said brought them to reason and reflection. They retired to another room; and I was informed by Major Hazlewood, that I had wrought such a change in them, that he hoped they would abandon the violent resolution they had taken. They soon returned, and said they had done so, and submitted to my authority. Government had, they said, by the act of selecting me, taken the only step that could have stopped for an instant the course of operations which they, in concert with the whole of the Company's army, had resolved instantly to commence, in order to obtain redress of their intolerable grievances: and they desired me to understand, that it was consideration for a brother officer, who held that high place in their esteem, which he did in that of the whole army, that induced them to lay aside for the present all their schemes, and to yield him their obedience: and, as a proof of the truth of this sentiment, they declared I was the only officer of rank in India they would have admitted into the garrison; and that it had been resolved to have shut the gates on the Commander-in-Chief, had he arrived, as was once expected. I was too well satisfied with the substance of their submission to authority, to quarrel about the form of it. I instantly ordered the sentries to be taken off Lieutenant-Colonel Innes, and waited upon that officer, who I found (as was to be expected) much irritated at what had occurred: but I discovered, from his communications, too much cause for those excesses that had taken place. He is, I make no doubt, a good and a conscientious man; but his imprudence, combined with the impressions he brought from Madras, and the unguarded private communications he has since received, and made public, from a very high authority, were calculated to goad men into mutiny in common times, and could not fail of producing that effect at a moment like the present, when the whole of the Company's army is in a state of open disaffection to Government. I explained to